AS SEEN THROUGH Woman's Eyes

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue XII, 17 September 1898, Page 386

AS SEEN THROUGH Woman's Eyes

A woman, of my acquaintance, an experienced dinner-giver and dinerout, told me one day that, an artistic dinner should range between six and ten covers. ‘Six is the magic number,’ she declared, ‘but eight or even ten guests can be perfectly managed. ‘Do not confine your choice to intimate friends, but add to their pleasure and your own by inviting new people whose congeniality you have divined. ‘A really artistic dinner should not exceed four courses. Do not make the mistake of serving a feast where everybody eats too much simply because it is served, and the recollection of a few really delicious dishes has been lost in numberless inferior ones served after them. I have a recollection of a perfect dinner with six guests and four courses, including the coffee. The scheme of that dinner was that each should be perfect, worthy of the palate and the appetite, enjoyed to the full for its merits, instead of being picked over and forgotten. ‘Each dish was as attractive in appearance, as perfect in flavour and every chosen article was at its best. That could only be from the fact that everything was seasonable—no lean, half-shrivelled vegetables, injured in transportation; no tasteless berries or fruit forced to maturity at a sacrifice of flavour. The service was perfect, and the guests prettily attired, for they were all women, and there was not one of them who could forget either the hostess or dinner, but only long for a repetition.’

LOVE AND POVERTY. The world does not believe in love in a cottage very much; that is, the world assumes not to believe in it. But there are some things that stand the wear and tear of time with tolerable success, and love in a cottage may be one of them, the world ostensibly to the contrary notwithstanding.' From the secure pedestal of a large experience the world looks indulgently and pityingly down upon the aspirants for happiness in this particular line, and scoffs mildly and prophesies with grim cynicism. But love makes the world go round just the san ■•, and there ■ o place where love enjoys lli« manifestation of his powers as he does in a cottage, with two young people who have just gone from the altar to housekeeping. Love is in his element there, and he turns in and helps with a power mightier than the combined force of a dozen experts.

He loves to help two young people to select the pieces of furniture which are to adorn the cottage, and he suggests schemes for the artistic arrangement of them; he helps to lay carpets and to put up curtains, and to hung

pictures and adjust draperies. He can make the roaring of a bright fire on the hearth and the singing of a new tin teakettle to sound like a choir of angelic voices.

And then he disports himself gaily about, and writes on every article and emblazons in golden letters on every wall the word ‘Home!.’ and he is happy. Bless the boy! How he brings out the beauties and secludes the blemishes! How he teaches patience and toleration, and how he prompts good action, and brings to being no end of virtues and graces! There is a saying about Love to the effect that when Want comes in at the door he flies out at the window. You can scarce credit with fickleness one possessed of so many virtues, and while the evidence would seem to bear out the truth of this cynical, old, timehonoured statement, there are extenuating circumstances. When Want came in he led a companion by the hand, and that companion was named Selfishness.

Love ean keep Want at bay when Want comes single-handed. Love can make one pound do the work of ten, and he can garnish dry crusts with a delectable sauce that makes them fit for a king. But when Selfishness stalks in—oh, the change that transpires! This is the crisis the misanthropic old World watches for. When Selfishness becomes established on the family altar, Love hops down. Their joint reign is never a successful one. Selfishness is as old as Time himself; age has never diminished his vigour. If Love proves fickle, it is not altogether Love’s fault. There are extenuating circumstances.

BEAUTIFUL OLD AGE. LINES THAT TELL. Perpetual youth is a cause of much unhappiness on the part of the average woman. One sometimes wonders why age is so intolerable to many when they might make it attractive and beautiful with a dignity that youth can never attain. One charming matron, wiser and therefore happier than many of her sisters, gives the reason of it all in this: — ‘The majority of women are brought up as if they were gifted with eternal youth and exempted from all responsibility. 'Parents allow their daughters the opportunity of enjoying themselves in the sunshine of spring and summer of lifetime, but teach them no protection against the damp of autumn or the frost and snow of winter. Consequently, an aged woman becomes too often as uncomfortable an anomaly as would be a butterfly in December.’ Time deals more kindly with those who meet him gently. Do you know that quite as many lines are traced by the fear that lines will come as ever Father Time pencilled on a brow? If you are a woman and youth is vanishing. find comfort in the thought that there are certain lines that give character and expression to the face, and add to attractiveness when the pink and white plumpness of

ROSEBUD YOUTH HAS VANISHED. The modem physiognomist has defined and classified all the lines that are in the faee. He tells the world at large just which are the lines that laughter and discontent and a dozen other different emotions bring. Therefore, if you do not care to wear a veil at all times to hide from others your true character, see to it that you allow onlythe most desirable lines to appear, for the modern physiognomist has furnished the key so that ‘she who runs mav read.’

The lines of laughter are recommended. though they belong to the class known to womankind as ‘crow’s feet.’ The student of wrinkles tells us that as age is approaching a few ‘crow’s feet’ are not undesirable, for they give expression to the eye. As a matter of fact, everybody knows that though to the eye is generally ascribed all expression, it is really the lines of the face about the eye that give to the eye its expression. Take these away and there would soon be discovered that there is no such thing as a ‘laughing eye.’